Sunday Coffee v2

I spent most of the last week in Saskatoon, working the company booth at Crop Production Show. While I was gone, Winnipeg got all up in arms (myself included) over word that the parking authority was going to bring an end to free evening parking. Not being in the city put a lot of perspective on the situation.

Here I am in the City of Bridges, and with just a third of Winnipeg’s population, they’ve got a lot more of what we’re looking for out of our downtown. Synchronized lights! Walkable streets with boutique shops! Half-decent transit!

All this just added to the feeling that Winnipeg needs to sort out its downtown priorities - do we want to make money off Jets fans first, or do we want a downtown that works in the long-term? Making people for parking after dark is a good way to turn a profit, but it’s just another point in a laundry list of reasons for suburbanites to stay at home.

To add to this uplifting view of my city’s future, this week’s mix is from Arca. “Sheep” is a 17-minute escapade into the bleak, destructive electronics that Arca will be bringing to Bjork on Vulnicura, due for release in March. He closes this mix with an instrumental of Bjork’s “Enjoy”, a track from 1995 that is still so impossibly relevant even 20 years later.

This year in music is already full of storylines, but the question of whether Bjork can recall her prime by humanizing the dystopic madness of collaborators Arca and The Haxan Cloak is the most interesting to me. She’s had great taste in company the last ten years, but hasn’t always made the most of what they’ve provided.

If you’re unfamiliar with Arca and Bjork’s “new sound”, “Sheep” will be an eye-opening experience.